| Every so often, a new technology comes along that, by its very nature, will change the world.The automobile, the television, and the Internet are obvious examples of technologies whose impact upon the entire population has been so far-reaching that it is truly beyond measure. Bluetooth is not one of these technologies. Despite the massive amount of media hype that has surrounded it, the effect of Bluetooth on the average person will be more like the invention of the automatic transmission than the invention of the car itself: it will make things easier for the user, but not fundamentally change the nature of the way we live and work. Simply put, for the average person, Bluetooth will probably merit a “Cool!” or a “What will they think of next?” response, but probably won’t leave them stunned or slack-jawed.This is not to say that Bluetooth will be unimportant. I’ve invested several years working on Bluetooth, and I think it will be a valuable technology that millions of people will use, but I also think it’s important to be realistic about it.
There is, however, a small group of people for whom I think Bluetooth could fundamentally change the way things are perceived, and if you are reading this introduction, in all probability you are one of those people—a software developer. Traditionally, software developers have tended to look at the communication between two devices in terms of big and small, primary or secondary (terminal and mainframe, client and server, apparatus and accessory).While these terms are certainly still relevant in some situations, Bluetooth definitely presents us with scenarios in which the lines become blurry. If two people exchange business cards between PDAs, which one is the client and which one is the server? Traditionally, both a cell phone and a printer might be considered accessories, but when you use Bluetooth to print an SMS message from your phone, which one is the accessory? We may still use the terms client and server to refer to certain aspects of an interaction (like who initiates the connection), but it is easy to see that many of the other ideas and assumptions associated with these terms are no longer relevant.
In general, this book is aimed at software application developers who are interested in creating Bluetooth-aware applications. Its principle goal is to provide information and examples that are pertinent to application developers.This does not mean, however, that only application developers will find benefit in reading this book. As someone who worked at integrating a Bluetooth protocol stack into an OS, I know that I would have found many of the insights in this book valuable. It is important that an OS developer understand what the world looks like from an application developer’s point of view, and the insights that other OS developers have gained should certainly prove useful. In addition to developers, anyone who is evaluating a Bluetooth application for review, corporate use, or bundling may find the information in this book valuable in making an informed evaluation. For example, I know that if I were evaluating an application for enterprise use, I would want to have a good understanding of how security is handled in Bluetooth, so I could decide whether a given application met my company’s security requirements.
Simply put, this book will teach you what Bluetooth technology is all about, and how to write Bluetooth applications for several popular operating systems.This is a technical book, and it assumes that the reader has a solid background in application development and has a reasonable understanding of the issues involved in creating communications applications.The book is roughly divided into three sections: Bluetooth technology in general, Bluetooth applications on various operating systems, and a Bluetooth usage case study.The flow of the book is designed to introduce things to you in the most helpful order—first, supplementing your general knowledge with information about ideas and situations unique to Bluetooth, then showing you how these situations are handled in various operating systems, and finally by stimulating your imagination from looking at several real-world scenarios in which Bluetooth might be used. |
